“I must have taken over a dozen calls from agents the other morning and when you spend 20 minutes on the phone with each one it’s nearly three hours just sitting on the phone and talking; constantly talking to agents about different players and situations that might be able to happen.

“It’s very time consuming and then to have to coach the team and put the scouting system in place and talk through the financials with the chief executive; there’s a lot to do and in an ideal world this chemistry I’m trying to create with my staff will work for the benefit of everyone and give me more time on the pitch with the players when they return for the pre-season, and work closely with Jamie Clapham and Neil MacFarlane to get results.”

“It’s not like when I was at Middlesbrough and there were 16-20 players some days who you would class as being part of the Under-21 squad. “Here we have got players like young James Maddison who is very much training with the first team every day, as do a lot of the other younger players.

“So the Under-21 coaching role is a dual role in my mind and when games come around as a coaching staff we can all get involved and sometimes I might take the 21s, and other times it will be Jamie and sometimes Neil.

"It’s all incorporated with our football club but let’s see how that rolls because we are still lacking in numbers of that what we would call “21s” group.

“It’s not necessarily a role for a coach to come in to look after three or four players.”